


Get It On Time

by Anonymous



Series: Within/Without [17]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Family Feels, M/M, Post Season 3, Secret Relationship, equal opportunity embarrassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:28:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25053163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: It was fun to keep a secret—the kind of secret that didn’t hurt anyone, it just made you feel warm and tingly on the inside. At work they were the same old Buck and Eddie—their bromance the source of endless will-they-won’t-they speculation, 118 tabloid fodder, the longest running bet in the history of the firehouse. Hiding in plain sight.or: Christopher gets an eyeful, Eddie broods, and Buck maintains their double life as best he can. (set post-S3)
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: Within/Without [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1738876
Comments: 45
Kudos: 437
Collections: Anonymous





	Get It On Time

Eddie asked him for the summer.

“Just let me have the summer,” he said. “That’s all I’m asking. And then…”

_…and then?_

“We’ll do what we gotta do,” Eddie said.

Buck agreed.

In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t so much to ask. One summer.

And Eddie—

“I’m happy,” he said. “This—you—I’m happier than I’ve ever been. My whole goddamn life, Buck. That’s why I wanna keep it for us. You, me, and Christopher. Just our family. Two months. And then…”

Eddie never could finish that sentence.

Buck finished it for him, sometimes.

_And then we’ll tell people._

_And then we’ll make it official._

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed.

Buck got it. He really did. He didn’t want to share either. Eddie belonged to _him,_ and no one else got to see or know Eddie the way he did. It was fun to keep a secret—the kind of secret that didn’t hurt anyone, it just made you feel warm and tingly on the inside. Their little three-person bubble took on a charmed aspect. At work they were the same old Buck and Eddie—their bromance the source of endless will-they-won’t-they speculation, 118 tabloid fodder, the longest running bet in the history of the firehouse. Hiding in plain sight. Then they went home, where they were still their old selves, but their old-new selves, who got to be totally, completely, stupidly, unironically, and unabashedly in love with each other.

“Mm. Love you.”

“G’morning to you too.” Eddie kissed the corner of his mouth sleepily.

“Hmph.”

“Love you back, dumbass.”

Buck stretched. “What time is it?”

“Quarter to six.”

“…I know what we can do with those fifteen minutes, Eddie.” 

Of course it was his idea. Which made it mostly his fault that they were so immersed in each other—because even when the participants were possessed of a similar height and build, sixty-nining required some coordination—that they never heard the click-click of Chris’s crutches in the hall, never heard the bedroom door open. One second he had his face buried in Eddie’s groin, licking a stripe up his cock, and the next Chris’s voice was echoing through the room:  
  
“Dad, Bucky—wait, what are you doing?”

They sprang apart as if electroshocked. “Jesus fucking—chingada madre!” Eddie hollered, scrambling for the duvet. “Out, Christopher, lárgate, get out right now!”

“Daddy—?” Chris was still frozen in the doorway, wide-eyed.

“Christopher—!”

“Bucky—?” 

Mortified, Buck clutched the duvet to his chest. “Er, morning, bud,” he croaked. “Me and your dad are, uh, having some private time. Can you please close the door and go get dressed now? We’ll be out in a sec, okay buddy?”

“…okay.”

They watched the door close behind him and listened in silence as the sound of his crutches receded down the hallway. 

Buck forced himself to look at Eddie. Eddie didn’t blush easily or often, but now his face was a color that could only be described as fire-engine red.

“…Fuck,” Buck said.

“Yeah.”

“D’you think there’s any chance he didn’t…? Yeah, no, didn’t think so.” Buck dragged his fingers through his hair. “Fuck, Eddie, I’m so sorry. If I hadn’t—”

“Don’t,” Eddie said tiredly. “You handled it really well. I shouldn’t have yelled. I think me raising my voice scared him more than… whatever he saw. Or thought he saw.”

“We’re gonna have to…”

“Talk to him, yeah. Later, though. After our shift. Not enough time now.”

“How—how long d’you think it’s gonna take, Eds?” Buck asked, with some trepidation. They’d joked, the two of them, that Buck would be the one to sit Christopher down for The Talk, when the moment arrived, because he had Cool Friend status and was a helluva lot chiller about sex than Eddie. But faced with the imminent prospect, he felt a twinge of unease. He’d never anticipated it going down this way. Like, literally. They’d been blowing each other, for Christ’s sake. It didn’t get much more sordid than that.

“Well, we have to let him ask questions,” Eddie replied grimly, “so god only knows, right?”

“Right, yeah.”

Chris was quiet at breakfast, quieter than usual. Buck watched him guiltily. Chris was very much a morning person; Buck didn’t know anyone else for whom waking up was such good news, such a joyful event. _Dad, Buck, I’m awake!_ Buck wondered if they’d traumatized him for life. Christopher had always taken them for granted—him and Eddie, together. He’d probably known before they did, because he was observant like that, and because he knew what love looked like. He’d made it easy for them.

Buck wished they could’ve made it a little easier for themselves. But time had never been on their side, had it?

Carla arrived as Buck was loading up the dishwasher and Eddie was off supervising while Chris made his bed and tidied his room. “Hi,” he said awkwardly. Carla had seen him here at odd hours before—she knew he practically lived at Eddie’s house. But with the heightened awareness brought on by the morning’s indiscretion, Buck found himself squirming, wondering how much she knew, or assumed, about him and Eddie. 

He really, _really_ hoped Chris wouldn’t ask her any questions about what he’d seen. Eddie was probably swearing him to secrecy right now.

“Morning, Buckaroo,” Carla said breezily, setting her bag down on the counter. “You’re looking well.”

“Er, thanks. You too, Carla.”

“Okay, weirdo.” She opened her arms for a hug, and Buck obliged, willing the color to recede from his face. He’d promised Eddie the summer, two more months of privacy. If Carla asked, well, he’d just have to lie and say he drank too much the night before and crashed on the couch. Not in Eddie’s bed. Nowhere near Eddie’s bed. Or Eddie himself.

But Carla had always been the epitome of tact and discretion, and she didn’t ask any questions.

Buck adored her.

“Do you think we should… take separate cars today?” he asked Eddie as they left the house.

“What’s the point? You’re coming home with me after work.”

“Yeah, but. Aren’t you worried what people will—”

“Buck, we carpool all the time,” Eddie reminded him.

He dropped it.

Eddie was… complicated. He didn’t want anyone to know about them (yet), didn’t want a label on them (in good time), didn’t want a label for himself (ever). But he was unexpectedly chill about other things. Like showing up to work together, leaving work together. Sex in private hadn’t cost them their comfortable rapport in public. At first Buck wondered at Eddie’s composure—couldn’t he feel the electricity passing between them, those little sparks of desire they traded back and forth? But then he realized the electricity had always been there. Now they just went home and put it to good use.

When they got to the station—Buck drove—the others were quick to notice how preoccupied Eddie was. To Buck’s surprise, Eddie caved within the first hour.

“Chris has been asking a lot about sex lately, and I think I’ve gotta have the big talk with him,” Eddie said, as they all gathered around the kitchen island to watch Bobby prepare a frittata. Buck was deputized sous-chef and glad to have something to do, half-convinced the team could see the complicity written all over his face.

“I started asking about sex when I was six or seven,” he volunteered. “It was after that Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky stuff came out, you know, ‘I never had sexual relations with that woman.’ I came home from school one day and asked Maddie what a blowjob was.”

_Shit_ , he thought. Why had he brought blowjobs into this?

“Poor Maddie,” Chimney said.

“Does Christopher know where babies come from?” Bobby asked, directing Buck to start sautéing the vegetables.

Eddie nodded.

“Well, that’s a start,” Hen said encouragingly.

“Answer his questions, but you don’t need to overwhelm him with information,” Bobby advised. “Keep your explanations simple, and only supply details if he has more questions or seems really interested in what you’re talking about.”

“Right,” Eddie said. He wouldn’t meet Buck’s eyes.

“If he knows about reproduction, the next thing for him to understand is that there’s more to sex than something grownups do when they want to have a baby,” Hen said.

Buck watched the peppers sizzling in the pan.

Eddie cleared his throat. “Hen, did you, uh—with Denny—?”

Hen nodded. “Karen and I try to treat it as more of an ongoing conversation,” she said. “Of course, it’s more complicated for us, because we’re not a traditional family and Denny didn’t come to us the traditional way. We explained to him that grownups can have sex for plenty of other reasons, too. Like for pleasure and to express love and feel close to a partner.”

They wouldn’t need a cast-iron skillet for the frittata, Buck thought, they could just fry the eggs directly on his face. His cheeks burned as he tried to imagine telling Christopher that what he’d witnessed this morning was an _expression of_ _love._

“Chris will probably just think it’s gross and weird,” Hen added.

Chimney, who had been uncharacteristically silent, decided to interject then. “Hey Eddie, why don’t you just have Buckaroo here do it for you?”

Buck sputtered. “W-what?”

“Who talks about sex more than Buck? Who _likes_ talking about sex more than Buck?”

“I don’t do that anymore. Guys, c’mon! You know that’s not me, Buck 3.0 would never—”

“Well I’m definitely calling you up when it’s my kid’s turn,” Chimney said.

They all stared at him.

“ _Hypothetical_ kid,” Chim clarified.

Buck had every intention of pursuing that line of inquiry, because it clearly implicated his sister. But the bell had always possessed impeccable timing, and it chose that moment to blare through the station, and the subject was dropped in the mad scramble for turnout gear. 

Ten hours later, Buck was sitting at the dinner table with Eddie and Christopher. He hadn’t tasted a single thing he’d put in his mouth and he’d sweated through his t-shirt, but overall he felt they’d done okay. They’d adapted the basic message from Hen, that sex was a private thing that grownups did to feel good together, and Chris seemed to accept it, even though he wrinkled his nose in disgust.

“I’m sorry for yelling this morning,” Eddie told him. “But it’s really important that you knock before coming into other people’s bedrooms, okay mijo?”

Chris nodded. “I’m sorry, Dad and Buck.”

“Don’t worry about it, bud,” Eddie said. Buck could see a vein throbbing in his neck; the conversation was clearly costing him more than the passing embarrassment it had caused Buck. “Just—knock. Please. Any other questions?”

“One more,” Chris said. “Who is Jesus Fucking Chingada Madre, please?”

Eddie’s hand, resting on Buck’s knee under the table, twitched. “Nothing you should ever repeat out loud, especially around your Bisabuela.”

Chris considered that. “Okay,” he said at last, eyes narrowed behind his glasses in an expression so reminiscent of Eddie that Buck almost laughed out loud. “Can we play a videogame now?”

“You bet.”

After Chris had gone to bed, Buck asked Eddie if he still wanted the whole summer. “’Cause it feels like this is starting to get away from us, don’t you think?”

Eddie didn’t reply.

“If we told people ourselves, then at least we’d be in control of the situation.”

“But I’m happy now, Buck,” Eddie said. They were sitting in his backyard, watching the sky grow dark. No stars over Los Angeles, too much smog. They’d promised Chris a trip out of the city later in the summer. Somewhere with stars.

“You really think you’d stop being happy if our family knew about us?” Their chairs were shoved close together, the length of Eddie’s arm pressed against his. Eddie’s fingers ghosted over the back of his hand. Buck felt suddenly off-balance. Like that weird toy Bobby kept on his desk, an oblong full of colored liquid that swayed on a tiny fulcrum, one end or the other tilting down under the rushing weight of the gel—he felt that way now, as though something heavy and thick were filling his body and threatening to topple him out of his chair.

Fuck it.

His fingers sank into Eddie’s hair as they locked mouths and bodies together. Buck’s chair tilted precariously until he abandoned it altogether, swinging himself onto Eddie’s lap instead. The inside of Eddie’s mouth was hot, his skin—as Buck ran his hands beneath his shirt and up his back—cool from the evening air but rapidly warming under his touch. He could feel Eddie’s erection pressing against his thigh, and it sent a deep aching shiver through his stomach—

Eddie broke away, panting. “This would be a bad idea, right? Outside?”

“I’m really not the person to ask right now,” Buck said through clenched teeth, adjusting his legs so he was straddling Eddie’s lap properly. It took all his restraint not to grind down against him. He ran a hand through Eddie’s hair, letting it rest on the back of his neck. “It’s dark out here, and that fence is pretty tall… But it’s whatever you want, old man Edmundo,” he said, rubbing his knuckles against Eddie’s nape. “I’ll follow your lead.”

Eddie groaned.

“What?”

“Mm… do that again.”

He snickered. “What, call you ‘old man Edmundo’?”

“ _No!_ ” Eddie exclaimed. He dipped his chin, a head-duck of embarrassment. “Thing with your hand. Feels good.”

Buck dug his knuckles in harder. “Like that?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said quietly. “Just like that.”

Buck nearly vibrated out of his skin. Exploring Eddie’s body for new erogenous zones was one of his favorite pursuits, and clearly he’d just discovered another. He tried everything, the application of fingers, fingernails, the inside of his wrist, pinching and scratching and stroking for any interesting reaction. He was rewarded with a symphony of sighs, groans, and choked little gasps as he worked Eddie’s nape over. Finally he pressed his lips to Eddie’s throat, the fast pulse grown markedly faster, then kissed the tender spot behind his ear.

His shirt bunched under his arms as Eddie dragged his palms over his abdomen, up his chest, pinching his nipples between thumb and forefinger, carefully at first, then suddenly pressing down with such force that Buck cried out in pleasure-pain. The sound seemed to echo through the quiet backyard. Eddie pulled Buck’s shirt over his head, tossing it to the grass, and kept his arms raised up with a hand gripping his wrists.

Buck looked down at him, breathing hard, tempted to drop to his knees and blow him right there in the yard. But as Eddie trailed his free hand down his ribcage, his eyes were gentle, thoughtful even, behind the haze of arousal.

“Isn’t that interesting,” he murmured, fingers tracing over his abs. “You really are fucking beautiful, Evan Buckley.”

Buck nearly tumbled off his lap in surprise. “…the hell, Eds?”

But Eddie just bit down on his collarbone, the hand on his ribs snaking down the back of his jeans to grope his ass. Buck wrenched his hands free from Eddie’s grip and began to undo his shirt buttons, fumbling impatiently. He ran his nails along Eddie’s chest, through the soft hair, liking the sounds that drew from him so much that he raked them farther and farther down until he was rubbing his dick through his jeans.

He almost laughed at the adolescent eagerness on Eddie’s face. It was completely ridiculous, the two of them pawing at each other in the backyard, the rickety chair buckling under their combined weight. Except Eddie, Buck thought darkly, seemed to consider the possibility of their sustained happiness just as ridiculous, hopeless, and fleeting as making out under the stars. What seemed like common sense to Buck, the natural evolution of friendship and love, was to Eddie a complete _defiance_ of all common sense and inherited wisdom. Where he felt completion, Eddie felt the risible absurdity of their pairing. Two _men_ , neither of them certain what their relationship made them, in the realm of labels and definitions, in _society,_ with its crossed _I_ ’s and dotted _t_ ’s—

Eddie worked one of his fingers in deeper, pushing slowly past the ring of muscle. Hissing, Buck bit indiscriminately at Eddie’s neck, his jaw, any skin within reach. “Not so easy,” he growled, Eddie’s earlobe between his teeth. “Harder—”

Eddie gave his finger a sudden, obliging shove; Buck shuddered and groaned, and the chair collapsed beneath them.

“Oh, shit—”

“Fuck!”

They tumbled heavily to the ground, legs twisted together. Buck’s cheek smacked into the grass and he sneezed several times in quick succession as the fresh-cut blades tickled his nose.

Eddie snorted with laughter. “Probably shoulda seen that one coming.”

“Get off me, you heavy bastard.” Buck shoved at him.

They retrieved their scattered articles of clothing and crept inside, giggling and shushing each other, furtive as a pair of thieves. They paused outside Christopher’s door, listening for his slow breathing, his tiny snuffling snores; reassured, they continued down the hall to Eddie’s bedroom.

After the door had closed behind them, they struggled out of their remaining clothes, both of them febrile and clumsy. Eddie flailed, his shirt twisted around his elbows, while Buck hobbled over to the bed, his jeans around his knees. At last, unencumbered, they collapsed onto the mattress. Buck wasted no time picking up where they’d been interrupted that morning. He ran his tongue along the underside of Eddie’s cock, put his lips to the head, and drew him slowly into his mouth. He experienced an utterly ridiculous sense of pride when Eddie writhed at the touch, when he clutched at his hair and then remembered himself, relaxed his grip just enough for courtesy’s sake and to permit Buck to drag his mouth slowly back down the length of him. Buck lapped once more at the head and grazed it with his teeth, eliciting a hastily muffled near-shout—he and Eddie did love to play with fire, didn’t they?— then soothed him with long, wet strokes as he worked his way back up. Eddie massaged his scalp with slow, rhythmic fingertips as he thrust shallowly into his mouth.

They were getting _good_ at this.

With a visible effort Eddie pushed him away, and then they were wrestling, each struggling to put the other on his back. The outcome was always suspenseful, because Buck had the slight advantage in height and muscle, but Eddie was ten different kinds of black belt (probably) and used to fight people for fun. Overall, they were pretty evenly matched.

Buck had a good inkling of what Eddie wanted tonight, though. He whispered it into his ear, filthily, for the sheer pleasure of seeing Eddie’s face break into a hungry, sharp-toothed grin.

When he was ready, his ass, his thighs, and the sheets all smeared with too much lube, he rode Eddie fast and hard. Skin slippery with sweat, heart galloping in his chest. Eddie’s face was focused and radiant as he found a rhythm with him, effortlessly matching every twist and turn of Buck’s hips. Buck felt a groan gathering in the back of his throat and slumped forward to bury it in Eddie’s shoulder. They really had to stop doing this at night, had to stop doing it when Christopher was home, so they could be as loud as they wanted, all those awful hackneyed _yes_ es and _fuck yeah_ s and _don’t stop_ s bawled out at maximum volume. They thrashed together, relentless and frantic, and Buck’s final fleeting thought before he came was that they needed to buy Eddie a less squeaky mattress.

Limbs wobbly, they gave themselves a perfunctory wipe-down and then Eddie collapsed on top of him, cheek pressed against his. Buck closed his eyes and listened to the rapid mutual hitch of their breathing deepen and slow. Then he lifted his head and kissed Eddie’s cheek; Eddie smiled and kissed him back. Something sticky and wet was leaking onto his thigh, making him shiver. They’d fucked without condoms since testing clean, and Buck loved the messy intimacy of it, but this part was _weird._ Eddie didn’t like it much either; after his first time he’d been appalled by the inexorable logic of _what comes in must go out._ “What, you thought you’d like, absorb it?” Buck wanted to know, guffawing, and Eddie had shrugged, _well yeah, kinda._ Buck had been tempted then, he’d thought that if Eddie liked his fingers and his dick down there so much then maybe he could use his mouth as well, but Eddie had spooked like a startled horse at the mere suggestion. So Buck had put that item on the waiting list, things to try later…

“So, er.” Eddie cleared his throat. “Have you thought any more about, uh, if you think you might be—a while ago, you said you were trying it on, so I was wondering if you’d, um…”

“Eddie, I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“What you might call yourself. Like a label, I mean. You said once you might be…”

“…bisexual?” Buck supplied.

“Yeah, that.” Eddie’s eyelashes fluttered.

“I think it’s an alright fit,” Buck said, cautiously. It wasn’t like he’d been looking in the mirror every morning and repeating the words _I’m bisexual_ to his reflection, but he felt comfortable enough with the term. He could imagine himself saying it to people: _I’m with Eddie. Yeah, I’m bisexual._ But he knew it was easier for him. He didn’t have a family to disappoint, only Maddie, who would be gleeful and say _I told you so, I’ve known all along._ Buck had reinvented himself so many times already, shed so many different skins, that this latest incarnation—stupidly, unironically, unabashedly in love with Eddie—wouldn’t create any seismic shockwaves.

But Eddie—it was different for him. Complicated in ways Buck had only begun to comprehend. He wasn’t Mexican, for one thing, and he hadn’t been raised Catholic or any other kind of religion; he’d never been married, never gone to war, never had a kid when was he was practically a kid himself. He’d always traveled pretty lightly, Buck had.

Until he met Eddie and Christopher.

“Are you pissed that I still haven’t got past not-quite-straight?” Eddie mumbled into his neck.

“Course I’m not pissed, Eds. It’s—”

“If you say it’s _my journey_ , I’ll punch you in the dick.”

“Man, you would never, you _love_ my dick.”

“Shut up.”

“You _do._ But nah, I was only gonna say it’s up to you. As long as you’re _mine_ , I don’t care what you do or don’t call yourself.”

“Corny.” Eddie smirked. Then he levered his weight up and off and settled beside him. “It’s just,” Eddie said, eyes darting all around the room before landing on Buck’s face again, “How are we supposed to tell people about us, if I don’t know what I am? ’Cause coming out as ‘gay for Buck’ feels a little—limp. Like a cop-out.”

“I think ‘gay for Buck’ is a totally awesome sexual orientation,” Buck told him. “And it’s probably more common than you think.”

“Man, you’re the _worst._ ”

“If you come out to the team as ‘gay for Buck,’ I’ll take your cleaning rotation for a month.”

“Tempting.”

“Forget what I said earlier, okay? We can manage the situation with Christopher, with everybody. You’ve got all summer to sleep on it.” Except he didn’t want Eddie to feel like September was coming for him like a jail on wheels. “Longer if you—”

“I wanna tell my abuela about us,” Eddie interrupted.

“You—what?” Buck gaped at him. He’d always figured that, come fall, they’d start with the 118. The worst part would be the inevitable sit-down with Bobby: he’d make them promise to keep it professional and not sneak off for quickies on a slow shift. Excruciating, but otherwise tolerable. And at least one member of the 118 stood to make a great deal of money off of them, whenever they chose to make their relationship public; Buck _really_ hoped it wouldn’t be Chimney.

But Abuela—

“Jesus fucking chingada madre, Eddie,” he said.

Eddie swatted his arm. “Pretty sure she already knows. She told me I loved you, ages ago, and I didn’t… deny it.”

“What did she say?” Buck demanded.

“What, you want the receipts? She said, ‘Edmundo, te amas a ese hombre. Y él lo sabe, incluso si tú no.’”

“But I _didn’t_ know,” Buck said, frowning. “Did I?”

“You definitely figured it out before I did. Probably because I have what Abuela calls una imaginación limitada. A limited imagination.”

Buck laughed. “I love Abuela. She’s low-key savage.”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? Well, I figured we could tell her, the next time she has us over for lunch without Pepa. Nor ready for that yet. But Abuela… she gets it, I think.”

Buck wanted to tell Eddie that he was proud of him. But Eddie would hate that; he’d get all macho and defensive and tell Buck to stop fucking coddling him. “Sounds good,” he said instead. “Now we can ask her to babysit Chris when we go out on dates this summer.”

Eddie gave him a look of fond exasperation. “We don’t go on dates, Buck.”

“We could.” Eddie’s face began to shutter, so he added, hastily: “I don’t mean things that look like dates to other people. Dates just for us, that only we’d know about.”

“What did you have in mind?” Eddie’s eyes were still wary.

“I dunno. Maybe that new climbing gym on Sepulveda?”

“We go rock-climbing all the time.”

“I know. But this time it would be a date,” Buck said. 

“Fine,” Eddie said. He pressed his lips together and scowled the way he did when he was trying not to smile. “I’ll go on a date with you.”

“Cool.” Buck leaned over and kissed him.

Being in love with Eddie, being _with_ Eddie, was a fucking trip.

Eddie kissed him back, slipping him some tongue as he started to roll on top of him again.

There was a knock on the door.

They froze.

“Dad? Buck?”

“Just—just a second, Chris,” Eddie called hoarsely, and then there was a frantic rush for sweatpants and t-shirts. Buck yanked the duvet over the stained sheets, casting about for unsexy thoughts. Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton getting a blowjob.

Yeah, that did it.

Eddie looked at him; he nodded.

“You can come in now,” Eddie said, and Christopher pushed the door open. He hovered uncertainly in the doorframe, like he was afraid one of them might start yelling again. “What’s going on, mijo?”

“I woke up,” Christopher said. “Now I can’t sleep. Were you and Buck having grownup time?”

“We were just talking,” Eddie said firmly.

“But thanks for knocking,” Buck added. “You did good, bud. D’you think another chapter would help you fall back asleep?”

Chris nodded. “Can _you_ read it to me, Bucky? I want the English one.” They were reading _Harry Potter_ to Chris at bedtime, and Chris was getting two editions of the same book. When Eddie read, it was _Harry Potter y la cámara secreta_ ; when it was Buck’s turn, he heard _The Chamber of Secrets._ Chris made no secret of which version he preferred, but Eddie had promised his family that he would improve Christopher’s Spanish, so here they were.

“Oh, all right,” Buck said, heaving a dramatic sigh, and Chris giggled. “Get back in bed, superman, and I’ll be right behind you.” He turned to Eddie then, suddenly uncertain. “If that’s okay with you, I mean, I don’t wanna—”

“I love you,” Eddie said. “Now go read our kid his damn _Harry Potter._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry, Christopher. 
> 
> Thank you very much for reading! I always love to hear your responses. <3


End file.
